Cancer of the stomach; a clinical study of 921 operatively and pathologically demonstrated cases

Front matter

COLUMBIA LIBRARIES OFFSITE

HEALTH SCIENCE_S STANDARD

HX64119513 RC261 .Sm6 Cancer of the stomac

Preface

This work attempts to set forth the facts which are considered valuable from a study of 921 operatively and pathologically demonstrated instances of gastric cancer.

The cases and their records comprised part of my services, extending over ten years, at the University Hospital (Ann Arbor, Mich.), the Mayo Clinic (Rochester, Minn.), and my present clinic at Augustana Hospital.

It is at least a decade since a monograph upon this subject appeared. The interim has been prolific in its contributions to our better clinical, pathologic and surgical knowledge of gastric cancer. It is to be hoped that the practical worth of the more important of these advances is sufficiently emphasized in the pages following.

For numerous courtesies, I am indebted to many. Particularly would I express my gratitude to Drs. William J. Mayo, Christopher Graham, William Carpenter MacCarty and Russell D. Carman of the Mayo Clinic, for permission to study cases and records, and for illustrations and material in the text. Dr. Frederick Hoffman, statistician of the Prudential Life Insurance Company, has generously allowed me to avail myself of the results of his valuable compilations. Dr. Albert J. Ochsner has kindly written the chapter entitled ''The Surgical Treatment of Gastric Cancer." It has been ably illustrated from sketches made at the operating-table by Mr. Thomas Jones. Drs. Oscar Nadeau and John Nuzum and Mr. E. Schmidt have helped with the illustrations and the text. My secretaries, Misses Pearl Empey and Frances Horgan, have been most faithful and painstaking. From my wife, I gladly acknowledge much practical aid and encouragement.

14 PREFACE

Finally, it should be understood that this monograph has been written during a moderately busy life. It is by no means the ''last word" upon gastric cancer. It is simply one clinician's analysis of certain facts which he observed in a great group of patients affected with a like ailment.

Frank Smithies.

Chicago, Illinois, January, 1916.